October in A Nutshell...

Wow. I've been so bad at keeping track of all the fun we've been having for the past 3 months. I really have no good excuse, just pure laziness! Ok, so let's start off with the beginning of October and yet another trip to the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas....

Justin took a huge group of Chinese this time around and it was so fun to go with them. I love going with groups from Turkey, China, or anywhere else that we can't speak their language because it lets Justin and I able to talk a lot more during the car rides. Justin then doesn't have the pressure to verbally entertain them. :)

Our first stop was Sedona and wow, Sedona is beautiful.

I'm not usually a rock fan but these red rocks sure were beautiful!

We all know that I am in no way a fan of the desert scenery, but in Sedona, I think it is picturesque!

We stayed that night at the Hualapai Lodge in Peach Springs and the next morning we woke up bright and early for our River Rafting Trip. The Chinese were so excited for this!!

We had about an hour ride down the canyon on a school bus from I think the 1950s. It made for a bumpy but fun ride down. We stopped for a little photo-op about half way through the roller coaster  ride. It was cold! Well, at least for us Arizonians it was.

When we made it down to the bottom of the canyon, we got our awesome ponchos on, and put all our stuff in a dry bag for the rapids to come!

We hit up some really fun rapids, the highest being a 7, and it was so nice to have a motorized boat do all the hard work for us but we got SOAKED! The water was only at a nice, refreshing temperature of 50 degrees!!! 

They LOVED this!

About half way through the rapids, we stopped for a little hike on the side of the canyon which brought us to some pretty waterfalls. The hike up and down to there is always an adventure!

Justin and I felt too American for our pictures and had to start joining in on the "V" for victory sign that the Chinese always throw up!

Much better, don't you think?!

After the last of the rapids, we rode for about and hour down the river to the helicopter landing pad and then took a helicopter up out of the Grand Canyon which took us to the Sky Walk area. We have done this a few times but it is always fun to go with a new group! They love it and think it is so cool!

After a long and tiring (but fun) day, we drove the rest of the way to Las Vegas.  We stayed in Cesar's Palace which with our Europe trip coming in 2 weeks, was really cool! Why go to Europe when Cesar's Palace has it all?! :)

We saw most of the free shows that the strip has to offer and of course had to show them the beautiful fall gardens in the Belagio. It was SO impressive! They also wanted to ride the NY NY Roller coaster and loved it. These guys were such good sports to do everything! I skipped out on the roller coaster since I am pregnant but I've been on it before. It's fun!

For the most part, the groups that come usually want to have free time to split up and do what they do in Vegas so it is always nice to spend quality time with Justin. He's been gone a lot since August so this was a very much needed trip for us! Thanks Smiths for watching the kiddos again!

And now for Halloween!! Our Europe trip was somewhere in between the Vegas Trip and Halloween but I'm still working up my courage to conquer that one!

We had fun decorating for Halloween this year and it cost us next to nothing!

These guys were made from left over Mason jars and spookily sat on each side of our piano...

and our newest addition to the house this year were bats and rats! Lovingly cut out and packaged by the Dollar Tree. Thanks for saving me the time! I love that place. 

I made these spooky eye boxes from an idea I saw on Pintrest. They literally cost me nothing! Recycled cereal and pasta boxes, yellow tissue paper and tea cup lights! Easy peasy and Ethan loved these creepy creatures!

Now on to the costumes. I was such a lame mom with the costumes this year. We got back from our 2 week Europe trip 2 days before Halloween and I was SO tired. I had no energy to be creative with the costumes and in case you didn't know, Europe is expensive! So we got Ethan a costume from Europe at a place called Carcassonne, France. It's this gorgeous medieval castle/fortress that has been renovated on the inside to have medieval shops, hotels, etc. We got him a knight costume there which we thought was pretty cool but in reality, he wanted to be Batman for Halloween. Luckily, he was still a happy trooper in wearing this instead. 

Here is the really lame part. I didn't even take a picture of him on Halloween! Or even close to Halloween at that. I may or may not have taken this picture of Ethan in his costume this morning :) Oh well. Ellie wanted to join in on the picture fun too!

 She always says "Cheese!" and smiles so big that her eyes disappear when a picture is taken! 

I did, however, get a picture of Ellie on Halloween. Cheesy skeleton shirt with a festive headband. Pretty awesome, I know.

The kids loved trick of treating and Ellie got the hang of it pretty quickly. She was hilarious in saying "Twick Tree!" while holding out her basket for the candy or taking the initiative in choosing her own. Everyone thought she was so cute. 

October was so good to us. Fun trips, fun kids, cooler weather, and the start of the holidays!